'Fracking', With Care, Holds Key to Nation's Energy Future
Little more than a decade ago, the United States was running so low on natural gas that companies were making plans to cover the shortfall with imports of liquefied natural gas. Today, though, the marine terminals built to dock huge LNG (liquefied natural gas) ships in Texas, Louisiana and Maryland are being converted to ship gas out, not just bring it in.
This remarkable reversal of fortune is the result of a dramatic boom in a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which uses high-pressure water mixed with chemicals and sand to crack open shale formations. This technique has brought a surprising amount of new gas production from states as disparate as Texas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania enough combined with conventional supplies to last perhaps 100 years at current consumption rates.
That's game-changing, wildly under discussed news. Gas now meets only about a quarter of the nation's energy needs, much of it for home heating and industrial use. But if estimates of shale gas reserves are correct and they seem to just get bigger gas could begin to displace oil as a fuel for vehicles and might even help unseat coal as the nation's dominant fuel for generating electricity. Price pressures would ease; dependence on unstable supplies of foreign oil could decline.
By Rock Zierman The "safe fracking" question has been asked and answered many times over by government regulators, scientists and other technical experts, and they have concluded that hydraulic fracturing is a fundamentally safe technology. Interior secretaries and EPA heads have repeatedly said that fracking can be done, and is being done, so that it doesn't present environmental or public health problems. That's been the case for decades, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, a former petroleum engineer and a former president of REI, the outdoor equipment retailer, said in May. Jewell's predecessor, Ken Salazar, testified to Congress that hydraulic fracturing "has been done safely hundreds of thousands of times" and warned lawmakers against anti-fracking "hysteria." As far back as 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency studied whether hydraulic fracturing contaminated drinking water. The EPA studied a site in Alabama at the request of environmentalists and found "no evidence" of "any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water." In 2004, the agency conducted a broader study and also found fracking "poses little or no threat" to water supplies. In 2009, another study from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Ground Water Protection Council -- an interstate body of environmental regulators -- concluded that fracking is a "safe and effective" technology for producing energy from deep geological formations like California's Monterey Shale. More recently, Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback, who's also served as an advisor to the Obama administration, confirmed that fluids used in hydraulic fracturing "have not contaminated any water supply," and with more than a mile of rock separating deep shale formations and shallow drinking water aquifers, "it is very unlikely they could." In California, it is worth noting, more than 80% of hydraulic fracturing occurs in parts of Kern County where there is no potable groundwater. Despite the sound bipartisan defeat of legislation that would impose a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, some activist groups are still pressing lawmakers to ban the technology. There is no reason to impose a moratorium or ban on a technology that is fundamentally safe, will lead to more jobs and economic growth and will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Regulators should continue to review the rules that apply to hydraulic fracturing, and find ways to improve them to ensure that the public has the information it needs about the process. The facts clearly show that this technology can be used safely while regulatory updates are made.
Little more than a decade ago, the United States was running so low on natural gas that companies were making plans to cover the shortfall with imports of liquefied natural gas. Today, though, the marine terminals built to dock huge LNG (liquefied natural gas) ships in Texas, Louisiana and Maryland are being converted to ship gas out, not just bring it in.
This remarkable reversal of fortune is the result of a dramatic boom in a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which uses high-pressure water mixed with chemicals and sand to crack open shale formations. This technique has brought a surprising amount of new gas production from states as disparate as Texas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania enough combined with conventional supplies to last perhaps 100 years at current consumption rates.
That's game-changing, wildly under discussed news. Gas now meets only about a quarter of the nation's energy needs, much of it for home heating and industrial use. But if estimates of shale gas reserves are correct and they seem to just get bigger gas could begin to displace oil as a fuel for vehicles and might even help unseat coal as the nation's dominant fuel for generating electricity. Price pressures would ease; dependence on unstable supplies of foreign oil could decline.
Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA) Jun 21, 2013, p. A.19 Copyright © 2013 Los Angeles Times. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Why So Much Fracking Hysteria?
By Rock Zierman
The "safe fracking" question has been asked and answered many times over by government regulators, scientists and other technical experts, and they have concluded that hydraulic fracturing is a fundamentally safe technology. Interior secretaries and EPA heads have repeatedly said that fracking can be done, and is being done, so that it doesn't present environmental or public health problems.
That's been the case for decades, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, a former petroleum engineer and a former president of REI, the outdoor equipment retailer, said in May. Jewell's predecessor, Ken Salazar, testified to Congress that hydraulic fracturing "has been done safely hundreds of thousands of times" and warned lawmakers against anti-fracking "hysteria."
As far back as 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency studied whether hydraulic fracturing contaminated drinking water. The EPA studied a site in Alabama at the request of environmentalists and found "no evidence" of "any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water." In 2004, the agency conducted a broader study and also found fracking "poses little or no threat" to water supplies.
In 2009, another study from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Ground Water Protection Council -- an interstate body of environmental regulators -- concluded that fracking is a "safe and effective" technology for producing energy from deep geological formations like California's Monterey Shale.
More recently, Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback, who's also served as an advisor to the Obama administration, confirmed that fluids used in hydraulic fracturing "have not contaminated any water supply," and with more than a mile of rock separating deep shale formations and shallow drinking water aquifers, "it is very unlikely they could." In California, it is worth noting, more than 80% of hydraulic fracturing occurs in parts of Kern County where there is no potable groundwater.
Despite the sound bipartisan defeat of legislation that would impose a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, some activist groups are still pressing lawmakers to ban the technology. There is no reason to impose a moratorium or ban on a technology that is fundamentally safe, will lead to more jobs and economic growth and will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Regulators should continue to review the rules that apply to hydraulic fracturing, and find ways to improve them to ensure that the public has the information it needs about the process. The facts clearly show that this technology can be used safely while regulatory updates are made.